The following discussion is preserved as an archive of a successful request for adminship. Please do not modify it.

Andrew Norman

Final count: (26/0/0) ended 14:56 Wednesday 7th December 2005 (UTC)

Andrew Norman ( talk · contribs) – Self-nomination. I've been around for a little over a year, and since April of this year in earnest, making getting on for a couple of thousand edits. I do something on Wikipedia almost every day, even if it's just reverting vandalism ( John Locke attracts vandals like honey attracts bees, for some reason). I've made major contributions to several articles (see below), started a few, and watch over four hundred. Principally I want to be an administrator to make rolling back vandalism easier. I'm also mindful of the fact that often administrators do too much, sweeping over things and not having the time to work on particular problems in detail - I'm ambiguous about boasts about numbers of edits or articles watched, it seems to me to be better to keep a careful watch on a smaller area. Many of the philosophy articles, for example, benefit from having a small group of knowledgeable editors who simply do not allow POV pushing or nonsense to intrude, and I'd like to be able to assist with that. People without a particularly sophisticated knowledge of Wikipedia use it as a reliable source of information - my mother, children at local schools, students at the university where I work (who should probably know better, but there you are). I think it's important that what people see here is at least a reasonable approximation of the truth, arrived at by consensus and discussion, not what someone with an axe to grind has put up without being challenged. ajn ( talk) 14:56, 30 November 2005 (UTC) reply

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here: self-nomination.

Support

1. Support. From the contributions listed below, looks a very good editor, and that is good enough for me. Tintin 15:23, 30 November 2005 (UTC) reply
2. Support. Lots of solid contributions. Briangotts | (Talk) 15:28, 30 November 2005 (UTC) reply
3. Support would be a good admin. Gator (talk) 15:45, 30 November 2005 (UTC) reply
4. Merovingian 15:49, 30 November 2005 (UTC) reply
5. Support. I like your reasons for wanting adminship. Your specific use of the admin tools is a definite case of "no big deal". -- D e ath phoenix 16:24, 30 November 2005 (UTC) reply
6. Support, unlikely to abuse administrator tools. Christopher Parham (talk) 17:30, 30 November 2005 (UTC) reply
7. Oran e (t) (c) (e-mail) 17:42, 30 November 2005 (UTC) reply
8. Support Quentin Pierc e 19:16, 30 November 2005 (UTC) reply
9. Support. No big deal. I would like to see you continue to use edit summaries consistantly, and perhaps develop your user page a bit more. Good luck. -- LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 20:57, 30 November 2005 (UTC) reply
10. Support. Great modus operandi. Cnwb 23:50, 30 November 2005 (UTC) reply
11. Support Good answers, good history, will be good admin -- Rogerd 03:26, 1 December 2005 (UTC) reply
12. Support - what Lord Voldemort said. BD2412 T 03:42, 1 December 2005 (UTC) reply
13. Support, looks good. ナイトスタリオン ✉ 09:46, 1 December 2005 (UTC) reply
14. Support I'm generally opposed to self noms but this guy seems to have the right attitude and ideas of what the job entails. give em the mop already.   ALKIVAR ™ 10:23, 1 December 2005 (UTC) reply
15. Support. Kirill Lokshin 14:25, 1 December 2005 (UTC) reply
16. Support MONGO 20:18, 1 December 2005 (UTC) reply
17. Support ε γκυκλοπαίδεια * (talk) 23:25, 1 December 2005 (UTC) reply
18. Support Proto  t  c 12:51, 2 December 2005 (UTC) reply
19. Support Good attitude, trustworthy. Rx StrangeLove 06:42, 3 December 2005 (UTC) reply
20. Support. Good answers. - Colin Kimbrell 08:06, 3 December 2005 (UTC) reply
21. Support. El_C 00:26, 4 December 2005 (UTC) reply
22. Support. Seems like a reasonable candidate. Jayjg ^(talk) 21:33, 5 December 2005 (UTC) reply
23. Support. This guy is great! jucifer 19:07, 6 December 2005 (UTC) reply
24. Support. the wub "?!" 18:34, 7 December 2005 (UTC) reply
25. Support :) Brookie: A collector of little round things 19:42, 7 December 2005 (UTC) reply
26. Support - though another vote in favour is hardly needed at this stage! CLW 21:18, 7 December 2005 (UTC) reply

Oppose

Neutral

Comments

Questions for the candidate
A few generic questions to provide guidance for voters:

1. What sysop chores, if any, would you anticipate helping with? Please check out Category:Wikipedia backlog, and read the page about administrators and the administrators' reading list.

A. Rolling back vandalism, assisting with the process for merging and deleting articles, and so on. I'm a school governor and a charity trustee, so I'm used to having to work with people who often have very different viewpoints, and reaching consensus, so possibly also the business of protecting pages and conflict resolution.

2. Of your articles or contributions to Wikipedia, are there any about which you are particularly pleased, and why?

A. Louis MacNeice is largely my own work, as is History of Western Philosophy (Russell). I did a major rewrite of Miles Davis in April 2005, my first large-scale contribution, which I think put it well on the way to becoming a featured article later in the year. On the whole, though, I think it's better to think of contributions to Wikipedia as being part of a community effort, not to point to things and say "that's mine". I do like it when I can create new articles for minor figures - plasticine led on to William Harbutt, who is an interesting character. Or Louis MacNeice to John Beazley, E. R. Dodds and Hedli Anderson. I've learned a lot by finding things out to put in Wikipedia articles.

3. Have you been in any conflicts over editing in the past or do you feel other users have caused you stress? How have you dealt with it and how will you deal with it in the future?

A. On the whole, I don't get stressed. Conflicts are best dealt with by reasoned discussion. I can think of two cases: when I first started here, I got involved with argument over Brummie and Brummagem (May 2005). I tried to deal with that by reason, and then when it became apparent that one particular editor was using discussion not as a way of sorting things out reasonably but by wearing people down to force through his point of view, I went through the dispute resolution process. I was disappointed by the reaction (both from the admin involved, and from the other editor who treated it as a joke). I walked away, probably should have stuck to my guns but I was new. More recently there has been discussion around Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein, the latter involving someone with some very strange theories. Sticking to Wikipedia policies about verification, NPOV and no original research has been the key. If people are reasonable, problems can be solved. If they're not reasonable, further steps need to be taken, but by people with community support.

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page. No further edits should be made to this page.